


Life in a Box

by misscam



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-19
Updated: 2009-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misscam/pseuds/misscam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Laura Roslin informally moves into Bill's quarters (and not just temporarily), she brings a single box and a bag of clothes. He probably shouldn't look, but he does. [Adama/Roslin]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life in a Box

**Author's Note:**

> References to "Blood on the Scales", not particulary spoilery. **lotus79** challenged me to write a fic using a favourite item broken beyond repair, a small clay frog, a book of Kataris poems, a hidden photograph and some lines of Bon Jovi lyrics. This is the result. Thanks to **lyricalviolet** for beta.

Life in a Box  
By **misscam**

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

II

The day Laura Roslin informally moves into Bill's quarters (and not just temporarily), she brings a single box and a bag of clothes. She hangs her clothes deftly among his, a visual reminder that her life is already tangled in his. He watches it, and her, until she steps forward and kisses him, and their tongues tangle and then their limbs do too.

Bill Adama and Laura Roslin, a knot long in the making. Can't untangle it now, he knows, and hasn't wanted to for a long time.

He forgets her still-packed box when she sighs his name, blazing skin like embers to touch and solace to kiss. He doesn't remember it in the morning or during the day, either.

Mutinies can be distracting like that.

II

Another evening, and he isn't home in time for supper. But then, neither is she, and he knows she must be advising Lee on yet another Presidential issue. Not quite pulled back in, but not quite letting go either and he smiles a little bitterly as he pours himself a drink.

He hasn't let go at all, and he tries to imagine Saul's face if he promoted his XO to Admiral. Abject terror, probably. Turned to abject disbelief when told the retirement was in order play happy home with Laura Roslin.

No. Not yet, in any case. Just a home will have to do. Their home, he thinks, and takes a look around. There are no real tell-tale signs it's cohabited now except her clothes and her presence when there, and he wonders if it's on purpose or not.

Her box. She brought a box too, he remembers, probably with personal items. It takes a little searching before he finds it in his closet, a little forgotten. It's only half-closed, and he takes it with him to the couch.

He probably shouldn't look, but he does when he sees the book on top, still burned and tattered. _Searider Falcon_. He can tell she's had someone work on it, some of the soot removed, some pages restored.

It's still beyond full repair, as he knew when he gave it back to her. She's kept it anyway, and he takes it over to his shelf, carefully easing it in amongst others. Her book and his books, their books, their joint reading.

He returns to the couch, and stares at the open box. He can see some photos, some papers, two more books and a small clay frog, and he can't help but pick it up. He knows these frogs. His grandfather had one, a memento from Tauron.

"My sister brought me one from Tauron," Laura says, and he looks up to see her by the hatch. He hasn't heard her open or close it, but the marines at the door do have a standing order to always let her in. He expression is unreadable, but her eyes are not. "It was her honeymoon."

Her sisters and father was killed in an accident, he knows. She told him, as he told her of his sister and mother. Loss for loss, matching griefs.

"You've kept it all this time?" he asks, and she shakes her head.

"It was lost in the attacks. I found that one on the black market."

Doesn't have to be the same frog to represent the same emotion, he thinks. He doesn't do it with frogs. He does it with whole families. Kara doesn't have to have his blood to represent as his daughter.

Laura walks over and sits down beside him, her fingers slipping lightly across his knee. She looks tired, but her kiss is light as she tilts her head and leans into him.

"Sorry I'm late," she offers. "Lee asked me to sit in on a meeting with Cylons."

"Sorry I was late too," he counters. "An issue with a repair detail."

She smiles a little, perhaps at the similarity. He doesn't really care what it is at, just delights at the sight of it.

"Why is the military going through the President's personal affairs?" she asks, switching to stern so fast he has to take a moment to adjust. And to think of an explanation.

"I want you to live here," he says, indicating where he's put _Searider Falcon_. "Not just sleep here. Not just store your things here."

"So you unpack for me," she says, a little humour in her voice and a lot of emotion in her eyes. She reaches for the box, and for a moment, he thinks she's about to put it away. Instead, she lifts a book up from it.

"Kataris," he says, recognizing the author. "I didn't know you read poetry as well."

"I didn't," she says. "Captain Thrace gave it to me."

"Kara?" he asks, surprised.

She nods. "After her... Apparent death, I believe her personal property got scattered. I came across that by chance looking for a book for you. I bought it."

"She didn't want it back," he says, and Laura looks a little surprised at him.

"No, she didn't. After she returned with the Cylon basestar, I offered to return it. She declined. Said her mother liked it too much. How did you know?"

"You wouldn't have kept it otherwise," he points out, and doesn't tell her the other reason. Kara is Kara, but not quite as she was, as if she's lost something in her return.

"Mm," she says, getting up and walking over to his bookshelves. He watches her as she slides the book in between the others, and feels a little breathless. "It fits your collection."

His voice sounds hoarse even to him as he speaks. "Ours."

She smiles as she walks over again again, reaching into the box for the next item. A picture of Billy and her, he notes. She places it next to one of him, Lee and Zak, and he thinks of children a little. Real, lost, claimed, wanted.

He always wanted a daughter. Too late now. But still. Laura Roslin would have mothered a beautiful one. He can imagine it, even if nothing else.

"I didn't bring much to the Galactica's decommissioning ceremony," she says casually, touching the cardboard. "I don't have a lot of mementos of my old life."

Unlike him, she doesn't say, but he thinks it. He has Galactica, his home even before the fall of the Twelve Colonies. She had memories and the line of succession, everything else she has gained on the way.

He hopes she feels she has a little more now. Him, for one.

"My life in a box," she goes on, and her tone is not quite grief. It's something beyond, acceptance of loss, and she's always been better than him at that.

She reaches for the last book in the box – _Caprica Carnage_ , he notes – and as she lifts it, a photograph slides out. She doesn't hinder him as he picks it up, but he can tell from her expression she rather he didn't see at all.

Richard Adar shaking hands with Laura at some event, clearly taken at an official event. It's unframed, so she hasn't had the picture up on a wall or on her desk. But she has kept it.

"Adar," he says, stating the obvious.

"He was the President," she says, not quite defensive, not quite at ease.

"He was a prick."

"I slept with him."

She sits down as he just looks at her, digesting the information for a moment. Laura and Adar. He can't quite be jealous, but he can be surprised. And not quite like it.

"He was married."

"Yes," she confirms. "I ended it just before I came to Galactica. He was probably going to end my run as Secretary of Education."

"Prick," Bill repeats, and is awarded by a slight grin. "Did you love him?"

"No," she says decisively. "But he was a part of my life. I owe him to remember."

He understands that, and nods.

"I remember Carolanne once every year," he says after a moment, and takes the book from Laura's hand as she watches him, sliding the photograph back in. He walks up and finds it a place among the other books as well, and when he returns to the couch, Laura puts a hand on his.

She is what she is because of her history, and he loves her and all that comes with her. Simple as that. He is fairly certain she feels the same, because she kisses him, her lower lip brushing against the underside of his.

He's too distracted by her tongue dancing against his to notice what she's doing until he feels something a little heavy pushed into his hands. A rock.

"It's from New Caprica," she whispers, putting her hand on top of it. "From the spot I wanted to build my cabin."

Her dream, he remembers. He never asked her then if he was in it – building the cabin with her or visiting her in it or even living with her – for all he wanted to. It's a strangely possessive desire, to want to be a part of someone's dream too.

But then, she shared it with him. That does make him a part.

"What else do you have in there?" he asks, and she chuckles a little.

"I'll show you," she promises, lifting the rock from his hands and putting it on the table. "But right now, I'd like to take you to bed."

Bed, with her. Sleep, but not right away. Not right away at all, her hand now lightly moving up his thigh and her smile an invitation.

He doesn't forget her not-quite-unpacked box, but he does temporarily have other things (her) on his mind.

Sex can be distracting like that.

II

The day Laura Roslin unpacks the last of her things, Bill does it with her, and she tells him a little about every item she's brought.

A postcard from Picon, a place she remembers a happy family holiday in. A picture of him and her at a press conference, their eyes locked. The oath of office, written up on a sheet of paper. A small flower from Earth, pressed between two sheets of paper. A sealed envelope, a letter for Lee and the future inside. A silk headscarf, a gift from someone now gone. A necklace, her mother's.

A little of her history, a little of what matters to her, moving in with him as well. Her life in a box, his life in a ship. Tangling them further.

Bill Adama and Laura Roslin, a knot long in the making. Can't untangle it now.

Might as well just weave it stronger.

FIN


End file.
